iPod mini, finders keepers...

yup, my friend found an ipod mini in his yard this morning, called me up (knowing I'm an apple freak) to inquire about it. I fiiled him in on the mini and then 30 minutes later it is mine for $50. I checked through the files and there was no contact info in it. Plus, it was a windows format so I felt no compassion for the guy

So it's mine now, I will give it to my 12 yr old son for christmas, and make him a happy kid.

Pretty good deal for me on my birthday.

BTW, it is in perfect condition and its silver color. if it was pink I'd have to give it to my daughter. Oh, well she can keep the original 5gig ipod for herself now. I will have to stick with my 15g 3G till spring, then get a new one for myself.

Comments

Maybe it's just me, but I would have had the friend post a small sign in his yard saying something to the effect of "If you lost something of value and can identify, I've found it." Make the owner ID it via playlists or something only they'd know (not to mention they'd have to know it was an iPod, a mini, and silver).

I just think how heartbroken my kid would be if she had her mini fall out of her pocket or backpack (not that she's allowed to take it to school, but whatever). It took her 6 months to save for it.

Have you ever lost anything of significant value? Would it make you feel better knowing that the finder gave it to someone else as a gift without making any effort to find you, the owner?

Buy your friend selling it to you, he is legally a criminal and selling stolen goods, even though he found it in his yard. Bad karma. I wouldn't have hesitated for one second to turn it over to the police, and put a few posters seeing if anyone lost it.

ok, I have been the good citizen many times. I have found a money clip with over $700 in it along with a drivers license. I took it to the police and left my name with them. I never heard from the person who lost the cash and the police said it was claimed. I have also lost an envelope at a mall with over $500 in it along with a bank reciept with my name on it and never heard from anyone about it. Now these things don't make it right, but I have stayed on the good side of karma more times than not, and this incident is not going to change my fortunes in any way shape or form. So lets get off the high horse and just let me have my moment of luck albeit at the expense of someone elses misfortune. Have a great day, Randy

Just for fun, I opened a Protected music file in Hexedit and my full name and E-mail address is there! I knew what to look for, so you can search for "name" and '.com' to find it.

Sure, that's why when you play a "stolen" or "borrowed" MP4 file (or if someone legitimately wants to use your computer to play their purchased songs on) it will ask you to authorize this Mac for this account (it then de-authorizes the previous user).

Any songs on an iPod that were bought through iTMS will have this info in each song.

You can take a song off of an iPod using PathFinder (show invisibles) or other programs.

Basically any iPod you find, you CAN (potentially) return to its owner.

Plus, the user might have registered with Apple (I don't recall if they ask for a serial number for the unit).

Enjoy, Randy. Perhaps you're the proud owner of a 10 year old girl's iPod mini.

ok, I have been the good citizen many times. I have found a money clip with over $700 in it along with a drivers license. I took it to the police and left my name with them. I never heard from the person who lost the cash and the police said it was claimed. I have also lost an envelope at a mall with over $500 in it along with a bank reciept with my name on it and never heard from anyone about it. Now these things don't make it right, but I have stayed on the good side of karma more times than not, and this incident is not going to change my fortunes in any way shape or form. So lets get off the high horse and just let me have my moment of luck albeit at the expense of someone elses misfortune. Have a great day, Randy

No, you're wrong. You can spin it any way you want, but you're still wrong. That's a great example you're setting for your child, too. Finders keepers? Well, you're the one that has to look at you in the mirror. I don't even know why you bothered to post this. What were you looking for, "ata boys", justification, what? You can never go wrong by doing the right thing. Anyway, lets' hope that your child fares better than the original owner of the iPod. Merry Christmas to you, sir.

Kind of a lame Xmas present for your son. Second-hand ipod found coincidentally and of dubious legality.

I'd be too embarrassed to palm off my daughter with a boxless, used mini. different strokes I guess.

Hopefully the son doesn't go to school with the person who lost the iPod mini. That would be an interesting confrontation.

FiveFingerDiscount,

I would be so broke up over losing such an expensive gadget I would gladly reward anyone who returned it to me, no questions asked.

Something similar happened with my wife a couple years ago. She lost an amethyst that I gave her when we first met. She offered a thousand dollar reward for its return (it wasn't worth anywhere near that dollar amount in the real world but it had huge sentimental value for my wife).

A few months later, someone anonymously mailed it to our home. They didn't even put a return address on the package! Since my wife lost the amethyst at work and posted the reward there, whomever found it must've known about it.

My wife was so happy to have the amethyst back, she went to work and tried to find out who mailed it to her to at least thank them for returning it, but no one fessed up to mailing it. To this day, the only thing we know about the person who found it is they mailed it to us from a post office in Bloomfield (my wife still has the box used to mail it back to her).

I guess I'm just posting this to say that I'm glad that there are still selfless people in this world.